Transubstantiation: From Stumbling Block to Cornerstone

The Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist is a real stumbling block to some Protestants who are seriously considering Catholicism. It was for me too, until I explored the subject, historically and scripturally. What follows is a summary of my deliberations.

Catholicism holds that bread and wine literally become the body and blood of Christ when they are consecrated by the priest celebrating the Mass. Oftentimes non-Catholics get hung up on the term transubstantiation, the name for the philosophical theory that the Church maintains best accounts for the change at consecration. The Church’s explanation of transubstantiation was influenced by Aristotle’s distinction between substance and accident.

Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), like most philosophers of his time, wanted to account for how things change and yet remain the same. So, for example, a “substance” like an oak tree remains the same while undergoing “accidental” changes. It begins as an acorn and eventually develops roots, a trunk, branches, and leaves. During all these changes, the oak tree remains identical to itself. Its leaves change from green to red and brown, and eventually fall off. But these accidental changes occur while the substance of the tree remains.

On the other hand, if we chopped down the tree and turned into a desk, that would be a substantial change, since the tree would literally cease to be and its parts would be turned into something else, a desk. According to the Church, when the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ, the accidents of the bread and wine do not change, but the substance of each changes. So, it looks, tastes, feels, and smells like bread and wine, but it literally has been changed into the body and blood of Christ. That’s transubstantiation.

There are several reasons why it would be a mistake to dismiss transubstantiation simply because of the influence of Aristotle on its formulation. First, Eastern Churches in communion with the Catholic Church rarely employ this Aristotelian language, and yet the Church considers their celebration of the Eucharist perfectly valid. Second, the Catholic Church maintains that the divine liturgies celebrated in the Eastern Churches not in communion with Rome (commonly called “Eastern Orthodoxy”) are perfectly valid as well, even though the Eastern Orthodox rarely employ the term transubstantiation. Third, the belief that the bread and wine are literally transformed into Christ’s body and blood predates Aristotle’s influence on the Church’s theology by over 1000 years. For it was not until the thirteenth century, and the ascendancy of St. Thomas Aquinas’ thought, that Aristotle’s categories were employed by the Church in its account of the Eucharist. In fact, when the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) employed the language of substantial change, St. Thomas had not even been born!

It was that third point that I found so compelling and convinced me that the Catholic view of the Eucharist was correct. It did not take long for me to see that Eucharistic realism (as I like to call it) had been uncontroversially embraced deep in Christian history. This is why Protestant historian, J. N. D. Kelly, writes: “Eucharistic teaching, it should be understood at the outset, was in general unquestioningly realist, i.e., the consecrated bread and wine were taken to be, and were treated and designated as, the Savior’s body and blood.” I found it in many of the works of the Early Church Fathers, including St. Ignatius of Antioch (A.D. 110), St. Justin Martyr (A.D. 151), St. Cyprian of Carthage, (A. D. 251), First Council of Nicaea (A. D. 325), St. Cyril of Jerusalem (A. D. 350), and St. Augustine of Hippo (A. D. 411) . These are, of course, not the only Early Church writings that address the nature of the Eucharist. But they are representative.

This should, however, not surprise us, given what the Bible says about the Lord’s Supper. When Jesus celebrated the Last Supper with his disciples (Mt. 26:17-30; Mk. 14:12-25; Lk. 22:7-23), which we commemorate at Holy Communion, he referred to it as a Passover meal. He called the bread and wine his body and blood. In several places, Jesus is called the Lamb of God (John 1: 29, 36; I Peter 1:19; Rev. 5:12). Remember, when the lamb is killed for Passover, the meal participants ingest the lamb. Consequently, St. Paul’s severe warnings about partaking in Holy Communion unworthily only make sense in light of Eucharistic realism (I Cor. 10:14-22; I Cor. 11:17-34). He writes: “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? . . . Whoever, therefore eats and drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord.” (I Cor. 10:16; 11:27)

In light of all these passages and the fact that Jesus called himself the bread of life (John 6:41-51) and that he said that his followers must “eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood” (John 6:53), the Eucharistic realism of the Early Church, the Eastern Churches (both in and out of communion with Rome), and the pre-Reformation medieval Church (fifth to sixteenth centuries) seems almost unremarkable. So, what first appeared to be a stumbling block was transformed into a cornerstone.

Francis J. Beckwith is Professor of Philosophy and Church-State Studies at Baylor University. He tells the story of his journey from Catholicism to Protestantism and back again in his book, Return to Rome: Confessions of An Evangelical Catholic. He blogs at Return to Rome.

The last supper was NOT JUST a memorial meal. It was NOT just Passover as is clear in Jesus' words

In the Passover liturgy God instructs the Jews not to break a bone of the sacrificial lamb (Ex. 12:46); it is John who makes the connection with that rite and Jesus’ death on the cross: "For these things took place that the scripture might be fulfilled, ‘Not a bone of him shall be broken’"

Matthew, Mark, and Luke (called the synoptic Gospels because they take a common view regarding the events of Jesus’ life) focus on the other part of the Passover ritual, the supper. They portray the Eucharist as the transformation of the old Passover to the new. They understand that the Eucharistic consecration already contains the event of Christ’s immolation on the cross, just as future Eucharistic celebrations are inseparably linked to that same event. Jesus’ words and actions are literally creative—that is, they produce what they signify

Thus in the consecration at the Last Supper and in the breaking of the bread, which became synonymous with the consecration of the Eucharist (Lk. 24:35), we have the supreme symbolic and prophetic action that restores mankind in a new covenant (Lk 22:20; 1 Cor 11:25; 2 Cor 3:6; Heb 8:8, 13; 12:24). In breaking the bread Jesus breaks his body on the cross.

The words of consecration constitute the moment of the mystical immolation of Christ which (in the sense in which we have used the word) "figures" Jesus’ real immolation on the cross. The great event of all history is that moment when Jesus allowed his own death on the cross. His death and subsequent resurrection constitute the event that institutes the Eucharist

The Eucharist is present to us sacramentally. As a sacrament it is in the signs of bread and wine which were instituted by Christ at the Passover supper with the words: "This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. . . . This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood" (Lk. 22:19–20; 1 Cor. 11:24–25).

1 Corinthians 10:16–17 points to the Real Presence: "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread." Now ask yourself: What must the cup and the bread be to make possible this participation in the blood and body of Christ? The most obvious and logical answer is that the bread and cup of wine must really be the body and blood of Christ.

Paul says that partaking of the one bread makes many different people into one body. The explanation for how there can be only one mystical body of Christ is that everyone receives the same bread. This is a kind of mystical unity that would be impossible if the bread and wine were not the true body and blood of Christ. Ordinary bread and wine simply cannot unite people into the body of Christ, but bread and wine transformed into Christ himself can.

Paul's question in verse 16 assumes a powerful truth: "Isn't the cup of blessing that we bless a participation in the blood of Christ? Isn't the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?" The Corinthians already know the answer to this question. Yes! This meal is a real participation, a genuine communion in these heavenly realities-the body and blood of Christ. The union with the one Lord excludes participation in the rituals of other gods.

Paul explicitly confirms this: "You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons" (10:21). Such strong language is based on the belief that Paul had already given to the Church at Corinth. This celebration that was so central to the life of the church involved a real communion with Christ. And not just with Christ in general, but with his body and his blood.

anamnesis = greek for remembrance

zikaron = hebrew for memorial

You’ll notice that in the passage quoted the word for begins verse 26 just after the phrase containing the term anamnesis. Verse 26 explains the meaning of doing this in memory. It says that anamnesis involves a proclamation of the Lord’s death in this act of consecration. But how does eating and drinking proclaim the Lord’s death as verse 26 says? Proclaiming a message usually involves preaching, teaching or speaking in some form. But recall the old saying that "actions speak louder than words." I suggest that it is through anamnesis that the Lord’s death is proclaimed. The eucharistic actions of the Church proclaim the Lord’s death by making the Lord present to the worshiping community of faith.

In Greek culture, anamnesis was a term used to denote the movement of an abstract idea into this material world. Plato, for example, used it as one of his key ideas. For him, knowledge was an act of anamnesis, or "remembering," whereby the realities of the world of forms (ideas) came to people in this world. So, anamnesis meant more of a process in which something in another world came to be embodied in this physical world.

The Corinthians lived in a Greek culture and it would have been natural for them to understand anamnesis as describing this transfer from the heavenly world to the material world. Even more importantly, if Jesus used Hebrew or Aramaic at the Last Supper, Paul (or whoever first translated the words of consecration into Greek) chose the term anamnesis. By doing so, he was allowing that anamnesis could have the meaning that Greek-speaking people associated with that term, namely, a transfer from the heavenly world to this earthly, material world.

Remember that Paul was a Jewish Pharisee (cf. Phil. 3:5), and very possibly a rabbi (cf. Acts 22:2) before his conversion. All this means that when he used anamnesis, he may have used it with a Hebrew meaning as well as a Greek one. The Hebrew word for "memorial" is zikaron and it has a similar connotation to anamnesis in Greek culture. It is more than mental recollection. The celebration of the Passover was believed to involve a participation in the original exodus from Egypt. The purpose of this being an annual and perpetual event for the children of Israel was that every generation could experience the liberation from slavery that the first generation in Egypt had experienced. Thus, zikaron connotes a participation in an event of the past rather than simply a mental recollection of that event.

Whether you approach this question from the Greek or Hebrew side, the result supports the notion of the Real Presence. When Paul quotes Jesus as saying eis ten emen anamnesin, he understands the meaning both in Greek and Hebrew senses. When Jesus said, "do this eis ten emen anamensin," he was not saying to simply remember him. He was telling his twelve apostles to perform the same actions that he did in order to bring the reality of him back to this world.

In case anyone wishes to learn more, here are the sites where you can read them:

http://www.lcms.org/pages/internal.asp?NavID=6476

All three accounts of the institution of the Lord's Supper in the Gospels (Matthew 26:26-29; Mark 14:22-25; Luke 22:14-23) explicitly state that Jesus took BREAD, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to his disciples saying, "Take, eat; this [i.e., this BREAD, which I have just blessed and broken and am now giving to you] is my body." Jesus uses similar language in referring to "the cup" (of wine) as "his blood."...

Perhaps the most explicit expression of this truth, however, is found in 1 Cor. 10:16-17, where Paul writes: "The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread." Paul clearly says here that we all "partake" of "BREAD" when we receive the Lord's Supper--even as we also partake of and "participate in" the true body of Christ. And he says that we all "partake" of the wine (the cup), even as we also partake of the true blood of Christ. Similarly, in 1 Cor. 11:26, Paul says: "For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes." Paul expressly states here that when we receive the Lord's Supper we are "eating bread" and "drinking the cup" (wine), but he goes on to say that those who eat this bread and drink this cup are also partaking of the true body and blood of Christ.

So "real" is this participation in Christ's body and blood, in fact, that (according to Paul) those who partake of the bread and wine "in an unworthy manner" are actually guilty of "profaning the body and blood of the Lord" (1 Cor. 11:27). (Partaking of the Lord's Supper "in a worthy manner," of course, is not something that we "do" or "accomplish" on the basis of our "personal holiness" or "good works." It means receiving God's free and gracious gifts of life and forgiveness offered in the Lord's Supper in true repentance produced by the work of the Spirit through God's Law and in true faith in Christ and his promises produced by God's Spirit through the Gospel).

http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/1999/9901fea2.asp http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2001/0109sbs.asp http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2004/0402sbs.asp

By the miracles of the loaves and fishes and the walking upon the waters, on the previous day, Christ not only prepared His hearers for the sublime discourse containing the promise of the Eucharist, but also proved to them that He possessed, as Almighty God-man, a power superior to and independent of the laws of nature, and could, therefore, provide such a supernatural food, none other, in fact, than His own Flesh and Blood. This discourse was delivered at Capharnaum (John 6:26-72), and is divided into two distinct parts, about the relation of which Catholic exegetes vary in opinion. Nothing hinders our interpreting the first part [John 6:26-48 (51)] metaphorically and understanding by "bread of heaven" Christ Himself as the object of faith, to be received in a figurative sense as a spiritual food by the mouth of faith. Such a figurative explanation of the second part of the discourse (John 6:52-72), however, is not only unusual but absolutely impossible, as even Protestant exegetes (Delitzsch, Kostlin, Keil, Kahnis, and others) readily concede. First of all the whole structure of the discourse of promise demands a literal interpretation of the words: "eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood". For Christ mentions a threefold food in His address, the manna of the past (John 6:31, 32, 49,, 59), the heavenly bread of the present (John 6:32 sq.), and the Bread of Life of the future (John 6:27, 52). Corresponding to the three kinds of food and the three periods, there are as many dispensers — Moses dispensing the manna, the Father nourishing man's faith in the Son of God made flesh, finally Christ giving His own Flesh and Blood. Although the manna, a type of the Eucharist, was indeed eaten with the mouth, it could not, being a transitory food, ward off death. The second food, that offered by the Heavenly Father, is the bread of heaven, which He dispenses hic et nunc to the Jews for their spiritual nourishment, inasmuch as by reason of the Incarnation He holds up His Son to them as the object of their faith. If, however, the third kind of food, which Christ Himself promises to give only at a future time, is a new refection, differing from the last-named food of faith, it can be none other than His true Flesh and Blood, to be really eaten and drunk in Holy Communion. This is why Christ was so ready to use the realistic expression "to chew" (John 6:54, 56, 58: trogein) when speaking of this, His Bread of Life, in addition to the phrase, "to eat" (John 6:51, 53: phagein). Cardinal Bellarmine (De Euchar., I, 3), moreover, calls attention to the fact, and rightly so, that if in Christ's mind the manna was a figure of the Eucharist, the latter must have been something more than merely blessed bread, as otherwise the prototype would not substantially excel the type. The same holds true of the other figures of the Eucharist, as the bread and wine offered by Melchisedech, the loaves of proposition (panes propositionis), the paschal lamb. The impossibility of a figurative interpretation is brought home more forcibly by an analysis of the following text: "Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed" (John 6:54-56). It is true that even among the Semites, and in Scripture itself, the phrase, "to eat some one's flesh", has a figurative meaning, namely, "to persecute, to bitterly hate some one". If, then, the words of Jesus are to be taken figuratively, it would appear that Christ had promised to His enemies eternal life and a glorious resurrection in recompense for the injuries and persecutions directed against Him. The other phrase, "to drink some one's blood", in Scripture, especially, has no other figurative meaning than that of dire chastisement (cf. Isaiah 49:26; Apocalypse 16:6); but, in the present text, this interpretation is just as impossible here as in the phrase, "to eat some one's flesh". Consequently, eating and drinking are to be understood of the actual partaking of Christ in person, hence literally

Lumen Gentium
as in post 852 where I said

The first line is from the document Lumen Gentium This is not a re-sacrifice. The key word is "celebrated as in "As often as the .... IS CELEBRATED on an altar" This does not imply that the work of our redemption is due to this celebration, rather that the work of our redemption is due to Christ's sacrifice and the work of redemption is carried on continuously the second line is from some other doc: CHRISTUS DOMINUS from the council -- and of course, the celebration of the Eucharistic Sacrifice is the center and culmination of the whole life of the Christian community -- you may disagree but we think Celebrating Christ's triumph over death to be very important

Then in post 859 you have a link to Presybterorum ordinatus where I said

Thus the Eucharistic Action, over which the priest presides, is the very heart of the congregation. So priests must instruct their people to offer to God the Father the Divine Victim in the Sacrifice of the Mass, and to join to it the offering of their own lives.

Then 856 where I linked to Sacrosanctum concilum and said

Line 6 is from yet ANOTHER separate, distinct document from VAtican II, SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM
At the Last Supper, on the night when He was betrayed, our Saviour instituted the eucharistic sacrifice of His Body and Blood. He did this in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the Cross throughout the centuries until He should come again, and so to entrust to His beloved spouse, the Church, a memorial of His death and resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a paschal banquet in which Christ is eaten, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us
Note again what I said above -- remember that God exists out of space and time. What happened then is an eternal NOW for Him. The divine sacrifice is a NOW.

The Mass is not repeating the murder of Jesus, but is taking part in what never ends outside TIME: the offering of Christ to the Father for our sake (Heb 7:25, 9:24).

In the same vein, the idea that receiving communion/Eucharist is what delivers sanctifying grace is just plain misunderstanding the Scriptures and the words of Jesus. Anyone can go up to a rail or sit in a pew in church and participate in the service, but is that what really saves them? Or is it the actual receiving of Jesus Christ as Savior, believing and trusting in him, that saves us?

This institution of the remembrance that Jesus gave the disciples at the last supper was indeed to people that had already accepted him (except Judas who rejected him) and he said they were to every time they did it to do it in remembrance of him. He took bread in his hand and said, "This is my body." he then tore it up and gave it out to them to eat. He did the same with the cup of wine, "This is the new covenant of my blood" and he passed it around for them to drink. In each case, he said his body would be torn for them and his blood shed for them and that every time they got together they should remember him by doing the same things. I think it is kind of silly for us to be arguing over whether or not the bread actually IS his body and the wine IS his blood. The apostles sure didn't look into the cup first to be sure it wasn't real blood or turn the bread over to see if it changed into meat, they ate and drank knowing he meant figuratively. Even after that, they passed this commemoration down to their people and they passed it on to theirs' and so on. People know it isn't really human flesh and blood but when they receive them in the communion service, they are doing it in remembrance of what he did for them by taking their sins upon himself and dying for them, for us all.

Taking in an "unworthy" manner is obviously eating the bread and drinking the wine in unbelief. It in turn makes them guilty of the body and blood of Christ. They count it as of no value or worth.

But, even though for the time of the service the elements are regarded as such, after the service, the elements go back to being just the same as they were, bread and wine, and their meaning ceases. I never watched what happened to the left-overs, but I am pretty sure they didn't get kept forever. We had grape juice in little plastic cups, and what was not drunk got either poured back into the bottle or washed down the drain. The same with the broken pieces of cracker. I'm pretty sure they didn't keep it because the next time they would be stale or gone moldy. The elements then are symbolic and only remain symbolic for the duration of the communion service. I know many out there might balk at what I am saying, but I am convinced that the entire purpose of the service is as a memorial only, not as a way of attaining saving grace. The saved are the ones partaking of it, not to BE saved but because we already are and we need reminding just how much it cost Jesus to save us. We need to remember that we too should be servants to each other and treat each other in Christ as the true brothers and sisters family which we are. Sometimes I think we can get bogged down on the minor things and forget the main thing which is Christ. Like my pastor says, "The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing."

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